During a Heritage Foundation appearance this week, acting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) director Thomas Homan pledged to supercharge his agency’s war on undocumented immigrant communities, saying that federal immigration agents will not only continue to ignore calls to stop stalking and arresting immigrants outside courthouses—including human trafficking court—but that he has also ordered an increase in workplace raids "by four to five times”:
"[A]s long as they think they can come here and get U.S. citizenship and not get removed, they're going to keep coming," he said during a Q&A session. "As long as they can come here and get a job, they're going to try and come."
Homan said ICE has already stepped up workplace enforcement since the Trump administration took office, and revealed he has given instruction to increase it "four to five times."
"We're taking worksite enforcement very hard this year. We've already increased the number of inspections and worksite operations, you're going to see that significantly increase this next fiscal year," he said.
Homan explained ICE is also going to strongly prosecute employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrant workers, in addition to deporting those workers.
“Homan said ICE will continue to strongly target illegal immigrants who are part of gangs”—a reminder here that there are no Department of Homeland Security guidelines prioritizing so-called “bad hombres” because Donald Trump threw out those priorities—“but, if someone is still undocumented even without provable gang ties, they will still be deported, he said.” This, for once, is a fact from the administration, because thousands of undocumented immigrants without a criminal record have been swept up by ICE.
Homan has been Trump and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s top mass deportation accomplice at ICE, pledging to increase raids in California because the state just passed landmark anti-deportation legislation and warning immigrant moms and dads that “if you’re in this country illegally … you should be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder, and you need to be worried.” Now instead of using our tax dollars to focus on actual dangers to public safety, Trump and gang want to double-down on sweeping up immigrants just trying to support their families.